Monday
Jan262009
Robots: The future of warfare?
Monday, January 26, 2009 at 4:47PM
"A robotics revolution may well be at hand," said Dr. Peter Singer, author of Wired for War, at the Brookings Institution discussion on "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century."
The author explained that robot technology is providing us with the greatest revolution in warfare since the atomic bomb. Robots are only going to increase in power, "You have operative Moore's law, basically that the power that can be packed into a microchip roughly doubles every two years. So when you calculate that out, it means that in roughly 25 years they will be a billion times more powerful than today."
Dr. Singer pointed out how this advancement in technology brings along with it new ethical concerns. The potential to carry out missions from a desk chair and then go home for dinner causes a gap in the reality of war experience. However, robot technology has the potential to greatly decrease the loss of US soldiers. "At least when a robot dies, you don't have to write a letter home to its mother."
General James N. Mattis addressed concerns with this robot revolution, stating, "War is fundamentally a social problem that demands human solutions despite the American pension for a purely technological solution."
by Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service and Staff
The author explained that robot technology is providing us with the greatest revolution in warfare since the atomic bomb. Robots are only going to increase in power, "You have operative Moore's law, basically that the power that can be packed into a microchip roughly doubles every two years. So when you calculate that out, it means that in roughly 25 years they will be a billion times more powerful than today."
Dr. Singer pointed out how this advancement in technology brings along with it new ethical concerns. The potential to carry out missions from a desk chair and then go home for dinner causes a gap in the reality of war experience. However, robot technology has the potential to greatly decrease the loss of US soldiers. "At least when a robot dies, you don't have to write a letter home to its mother."
General James N. Mattis addressed concerns with this robot revolution, stating, "War is fundamentally a social problem that demands human solutions despite the American pension for a purely technological solution."
by Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service and Staff
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